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A group weblog for Oakland A's fans

Saturday, April 30, 2005

Kotsay is the fucking man

That is all.

Friday, April 29, 2005

Hudson vs Mulder

Two old friends and ex-A's aces, Tim Hudson of Atlanta and Mark Mulder of St. Louis, will go head-to-head tonight for the first time. It should be an intriguing matchup, and I'd love to watch it (but sadly, will be unable to do so). Hudson is 2-0 with a sparkling 0.96 ERA so far for the Braves, and Mulder, after a shaky start, has pitched 18 straight scoreless innings over his last two starts (including a beautiful 10-inning shutout against Roger Clemens and the Astros on Saturday) to improve to 2-1, 3.10.

Rumors have been swirling that the two have a high-stakes side bet as to who will hit better off the other. That might be the most fun part of all. Hudson was certainly the better hitter while both were with the A's, batting .115/.179/.154 compared with Mulder's .045/.120/.045, but obviously these are extremely small sample sizes (26 AB for Huddy, 22 for Mulder). Back in college, which was the last time either of them batted regularly, Hudson hit .400 as a senior at Auburn playing 1B and pitcher, and Mulder batted cleanup for Michigan State.

Thursday, April 28, 2005

Lewis Wolff Takes BP

Listening to the Billy Beane Show on KFRC this morning, Billy said that Lewis Wolff took batting practice with the team before the game Tuesday. That was the same game where the A's broke their 20-some inning scoreless streak and scored 9 runs. That was moderately interesting and funny, what was more interesting was that Billy Beane says he has not taken BP once since the day he retired.

I would love to take BP in a major league stadium and wouldn't pass up the chance if I was GM. What that story means to me is Billy is 100% into his job as GM and doesn't look back upon his past at all. He can probably still hit a BP fastball out of the park, but he is not interested in that, he is interested in being the best GM in the game, which is of course why he IS the best GM in the game.

After a tought game Monday, the A's woke up to take 2 of 3 from the White Sox, who have the best record in baseball and had not lost a series all year. Besides Kotsay, who Joon pointed out is carrying the team, I like the play of the little guys, Marco Scutaro who drove in the game winner yesterday, and Justin Duchscherer, who got the win. Lately I have been seeing fistpumping from Duke when he gets a big out and I like to see that. It's a Huddy sort of thing to do, and Duke's stuff doesn't overpower anyone, but he knows his job is not to overpower, it is to get batters out. When he gets a big out you get a little jump and fistpump and a run off the field. Keep up the good work.

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Kotsay

Mark Kotsay is carrying the team right now, but one guy isn't always enough to win you the game. (Unless he goes out and drives in 10 runs, like Alex Rodriguez did for the Yankees tonight.) Kotsay, in his own way, was just as instrumental to the A's as they halted their three-game skid, taking charge in the outfield during a very sloppy sixth inning and gunning down Tadahito Iguchi at home plate to end the inning. At the plate, Kotsay singled in a run and scored during the 5th, and walked and scored during the game-winning rally in the 8th.

The starting pitching has been great (though Rich Harden had a rough outing today, raising his ERA to a still-very-good 2.10), but Kotsay is the only one of the team's hitting stars who is carrying his weight. Eric Chavez has been awful, both at the plate and in the field (though he had a nice game today, with a double and a single and 3 RBI). Erubiel Durazo doesn't play the field, but he hasn't hit a lick: .214/.295/.286. Yowzers, that's a batting line to Dye for. Jason Kendall has also been rather poor, .247/.318/.286 and has caught only 3 of 24 attempted base-stealers (and sent a number of throws into center field in the process). The outfielders other than Kotsay have been utterly brutal: a combined 31 for 170 with a mere 14 walks, 5 doubles and 6 home runs for an aggregate .182/.245/.318, which somehow makes Durazo and Kendall look Bondsian by comparison.

The win tonight was good. But even better was the fact that Kotsay finally got some help. The offense needs to come around (and the pitching needs to hold up) if the A's are going to contend.

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